Influence of oligonuclotide and peptide interactions on electronic properties of single walled carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes have been a point of attention since their discovery by Iijima in 1991. However, the biggest problem ahead for the applications of carbon nanotubes is their low solubility properties. Detergents are considered as surfactants which can be used to gain solubility for carbon nanotubes. On the other hand, DNA is a more significant solubilizing ligand which can be enrolled in cooperative binding interactions with SWCNTs. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool that can be used to study molecular systems, such as oligonucleotide/SWCNT structures. The changes in the electronic properties of SWCNTs dur to the interactions between oligonucleotides can be detected by Raman spectroscopy.In this study, the solubilization difficulties of SWCNTs are reduced by DNA interaction and covalent attachment to SWCNTs. The changes in the electronic properties of SWCNTs after the non-covalent interactions between oligonucleotides and SWCNTs and the covalent attachment of oligonucleotides to SWCNT are investigated by Raman spectroscopy. SWCNTs are interacted with short (10 bases) and long (25 bases) oligonucleotides. Also, to investigate the selectivity of SWCNT and oligonucleotide interactions, the non-covalent interactions between selected peptides and SWCNTs were studied by Raman spectroscopy. The pristine, carboxyl functionalized and covalently oligonucleotide attached SWCNTs are characterized by IR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.